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bushwhacker2000 alerts us to the dilemma of Thomas Dullien, a prominent security researcher who has been a fixture at the annual Black Hat security conference. Dullien was denied entry into the US on his way to this year's conference. Dullien, a German reverse-engineering expert known in hacker circles as "Halvar Flake," said he was blocked from entering the US on the technicality that he had (years ago) signed a contract with Black Hat as an individual, not as his company. Customs agents said he would need an H1-B visa to perform the contracted two days of training at Black Hat, and put him on the next plane back to Germany.

Uh, it's a conference. Pretty much any conference has workshops and/or tutorials. The presenters are usually paid (at least expenses), and very often foreign. I've been to conferences in the EU where people from the US gave workshops and tutorials, and ones in the USA where people from the EU gave them. I've seen people from China, South Korea and Japan give them at both.

If this is a precedent, then it means that conferences in the USA will only have tutorials run by natives, reducing the quality (since you'll only get the best of a subset of your attendees able to give them, rather than the best).

I've been to several IACR conferences and Toorcon multiple times. I was never paid to speak at Toorcon, and IACR speakers are not paid either.And you *can* give a free talk in the states without a work visa. So long as you're not getting paid [or staying longer than the tourist visa allows] they don't care.

So if he just forfeited his pay, he could have done the talk easily. Another way that is legal is to have someone else buy the airfare [if that's the hangup]. afaik it's not illegal to be flown to a c

The problem with your argument is that in the borderline cases they will deport you anyway then sort it out later.

He never got to see a courtroom or any due process, he just got put on a return flight. He also may have had to pay for his return flight or get his embassy to pay. If the embassy paid, they will charge him later.

A few years back I was contracted to run 2 x 1 week 'train the trainer' technical courses in the USA based on a training course I had developed. Being an upstanding UK citizen, I applied to the US embassy in London for a H1-B visa and the application was refused for (something like) 'insufficient details of nature of visit'. When I rang the visa enquiries line, I was connected to a call centre in Scotland that said they could provide no assistance as they were not embassy staff and all they could do was send me another form - and, no, they could not put me through the the embassy.

Armed with absolutely no knowledge of what information was missing from my application, I approached American Express who have a visa checking service - I took my application to their office in London (a 1.5 hour train ride), paid £70 extra for a 'personal service' and they checked over my application, gave it their 'OK' and submitted it to the Embassy by courier for same day processing. Guess what - same rejection.

In desperation, I approached a relative who worked in a different embassy in London and explained my dilemma - they rang a contact in the US embassy who put me in touch with someone in the visa department who agreed to look at my documents and call me back. After several hours, they called and said I would need a signed letter from the US training company confirming that they needed me to run the courses as there was no-one suitable in the USA who could do it. I arranged this by fax and then was later invited to the US embassy to get my visa - by now, this was the day before I was due to fly out!

But that's not the end of it - now when visiting the USA on holiday and filling in the visa waiver form on the plane, I have to answer 'yes' to the question asking whether I have ever been refused a US visa; this now guarantees me a near 100% chance of being stopped at US immigration for an interview, which generally goes like this:

* Sit in a waiting room for an hour* Get called into interview room* Asked why a visa was refused* Explain the fax I had to arrange* Asked 'is that all'?* Told I am free to go

I'm sure if I flew over to Germany they'd be all cool with me [a non-citizen/resident] just taking up any old job.

He wasn't "taking up any old job" he was simply doing training for a conference. Under the right circumstances, he needs no visa to do that, but the right circumstances require just the right wording on paper.

And for what it's worth, if you flew over to Germany you could do the same--be sent over for business purposes--for 90 days, without a visa. [usembassy.gov]

A B1 visa should have been enough since he had no intention of living in USA. I have frequently travelled to USA on a B1 for business purposes. For many nationalities B1 falls under the vis waiver program.

However, when you travel into USA there are certain words you should use carefully. "Work" is one of those. Don't say "I am coming to work in USA". Say "I am on business, attending a conference".

Bingo. As asinine as the G is, if he had actually lined up his ducks in a row, he'd probably be on his way to the con now.

I actually had an experience like that. I was touring to Broadcom to do a little side project for them. The idea was that the people who wanted the work done were in San Diego, but they would pay me through the Canadian branch of Broadcom. I'd go there to get the specs, then head home to do the work.

I told the customs dude [in Toronto no less] that I was "heading to the states for work." It was at 3am [6am flight] and I wasn't thinking right. The guy asked me about a visa and I said I didn't have one. Then he got all uppity about stealing jobs and all that. I told him that I was doing the work in Canada, but I had to meet the people first. I had to do a secondary check and had my fingerprints taken/etc. Was really unnerving. If I just told them I was heading there for a business meeting it would have been a simple process...

Anyways, I agree, whenever the subject of "work" comes up around US customs you have to make sure you have your wording correct. Otherwise they just assume you're a job thieving illegal alien and will get all uppity.

The company I work for is a parent company of a Canadian company. The Canadian company is taking over a new contract at a large manufacturing plant in Ontario. The Canadian division of my company doesn't have the infrastructure to get the new program on its feet, and as such was bringing in a few people,3 of us to be specific, to get the new people they were hiring up to speed. None of us had any interest in taking Canadian jobs, but the hassle in getting Immigration to understand this was unnerving.

I know the feeling. I was employee #5 of AMD Canada [oddly enough based in San Jose California]. Needless to say their Canadian operations are really small. Mostly just sales folk. I think I was the only software engineer.

Had a lot of messed up hiring dealings since the HR staff is based in the states. They actually had Canadian forms though for things like taxes though. But occasionally I'd be asked for my SSN or be offered a W-2...:-)

This is hardly an insightful comment and should be modded down if only for the bad attitude and swear words. In fact it seems like whomever posted this did not even read the blog in question.The blogger makes several excellent points about how foolish the whole situation was, how the application of the law was inconsistent relative both to similar situations in the US as well as international standards, and proffered two different, "do-able," legal solutions that were promptly ignored by the "officers" in

Many people come to the states legally each day, let alone year. If he filled the paperwork properly like he was supposed to, this wouldn't be an issue.Arguing whether their should even be such draconian measures is a different issue altogether.

For example, suppose I get busted for selling pot in the states. Sure we can sit and talk about the need for said laws, but currently it is on the books, and that's all that matters as far as the law is concerned.

The US immigration/Visa regulations are well-known around the world to be something out of the dark ages.

It's not just the US: most countries have bizarre immigration laws.
The beauty of immigration laws, from the point of view of the government, is that they can be as screwed-up as you like, and no-one is ever going to do anything about it. By definition, none of people affected have got a vote, and once they have been turned away they are in no position to fight back through the legal system. So immigration laws are always arbitrary, capricious and unfair: the way all laws would be if the power of the government were not balanced by the courts.

Maybe, if, for example, Mexico wasn't so back-asswards and corrupt they would put their foot down on illegals who get deported back to Mexico...

Maybe, possibly, if, for example, the US wasn't meddling and propping up the corrupt Mexican government for its own personal gain, those illegals you so flippantly disparage would be more than happy to stay home with their families, instead of risking abuse and death just trying to keep them alive. Yours and all borders are nothing more than global Jim Crow [ferris.edu] laws. De

Ne need. He has made himself quite clear already. I don't need to see any more of that dribble than I already have. He's just trolling for dollars. Never can tell if it's serious over these types of forums, but unfortunately, people do actually believe in this crap and millions are murdered because of it. He's just another animal marking his territory. He punishes people for being born in the wrong place and for being the wrong color. A real human doesn't believe in such nons

The blogger makes several excellent points about how foolish the whole situation was, how the application of the law was inconsistent relative both to similar situations in the US as well as international standards, and proffered two different, "do-able," legal solutions that were promptly ignored by the "officers" in question.

Personally, I am very skeptical that any pay arrangement would make the teaching of tutorials at a conference legal without an H1-B or some other visa that expressly allows the holde

There is no conspiracy, just a misunderstanding between legal systems and an apparent unwillingness to resolve the issue.
Generally, it is not a problem for a Canadian or a US Citizen to come to Europe to perform a service for a few days which he invoices from the US. In Germany, the rule is that he must not spend more than 6 months in Germany lest he falls under German employment law (and needs a work permit etc).
It is not a problem as an American to enter Germany, conduct a trainings class (that is not offered by anyone else anywhere), and leave three days later. Also, as far as I am informed, had the agreement for payment been signed by my current full-time employer (a German company), the entire thing would have been no problem -- it is legitimate for a German company to send an employee abroad to conduct a trainings class.
The agreement was signed by me though, several years ago. Under German tax law, there's a special status for certain specialized tasks (amongst others, specialized teachings) that allows one to act in some aspects like a 1-person-company. Think of this as a more restricted form of freelancing (e.g. you can't just decide to have said status if you're a programmer, you have to qualify for it due to the specializedness of whatever it is that you're doing).
The issue now is that today's custom agent did not treat this any different from a regular Joe trying to get into the US for a full-time job. Which this isn't. It's more that someone 'specialized' is contracted in from abroad for two days to provide expertise not available locally.
I hope this clarifies the situation a bit.

And yes, I agree that foreign workers are screwed over. Consider this, Cannucks have to go through the same shit that other foreigners have to work in the states.

but... I can drive to the states in 40 minutes. Hell that's shorter than some folks commutes!!! Cannucks [and yankees] should be able to work in opposite countries with much less hassle. Granted there are TN-1s but that's only for temp work [they're not supposed to be renewed].

Its really simple. There are laws that you have to take into consideration before you enter another country. It is your job to know those laws or risk having your travel plans ruined. I don't carry handguns into Canada. I make sure to fill out the paperwork to carry a long gun to Canada. I get to enter Canada!This guy just didn't know the rules and a customs agent enforced the laws. He is just doing his job. In my mind, the real news event here is that a Blackhat speaker is causing a big stink on the intern

How is this a technicality? He didn't have a visa to do the work here that he had contracted for.

Neither did he have one the other times he did the exact same thing. Now either this is a technicality, or US customs is seriously SNAFU. Hey, he told them what he was going to do, and they waved him through each time until now?

I think this is dead on correct. I have been crossing the US-Canada border on a fairly regular basis recently. There are time when the basically ask me where I am from and wave me on my way and other times when I have felt like I was going through something akin to the Spanish Inquisition.

This in no way means that the times I was given a difficult time that they did anything wrong. It just speaks to the randomness of the immigration process going either direction; because, it has happened going both ways

How is this a technicality? He didn't have a visa to do the work here that he had contracted for.

Because at its very essence the visa wasn't needed--all that was needed was a piece of paper saying that he was working for a company in Germany who was sending him, instead of going over and being "employed" by a company as a trainer in the US.

This is dictionary definition of technicality. One sentence needed to be worded slightly differently even though both sentence variants meant, in terms of the business relationship, basically the same thing. One variant makes the immigration bureaucracy happy, the other blows a multi-thousand dollar trip.

What they should've done was offer to buy some stocks in the German company on the international market and then let his company cut him in on a few priveleged options when he returned home. That's the way international players conduct their money-laundering.

A security researcher should definitely know how to get around such simple rules, don't you think?

What details are you suggesting I missed? Unless he is fibbing in his blog entry (linked in the summary) it had all the information necessary. No need to speculate.

Exactly. There's two sides to every story. As for fibbing, that's often the first thing people do when confronted by border security. They think if they tell just a little white lie they'll get through the screen process faster. The result is the opposite, should they catch you in that lie.

"Will you be doing any work in the US?""No.""Says here you are presenting at a conference.""Uhh, yes, that's right.""Are you being paid to present at this conference?""Umm, no.""Well the documentation you've given m

I actually believe that he told the truth straightforward. The technicality was sufficient to prevent his entry to the US (though, it's probably not enforced regularly.) He doesn't claim that he was treated unfairly (as I recall) just that the technicality is a bit arcane and stupid overall.

Under the Visa Waiver Program, an individual working in such a scenario is not considered "working in the US" until they hit 90 days. "The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) enables nationals of certain countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa

Q: Who Is Eligible to Use the VWP?
A: To qualify for the VWP, you must:

* Intend to enter the United States for 90 days or less;
* Have a passport lawfully issued to you by a VWP country that is valid for six months beyond your intended visit;
* Be a national of the VWP country that issued your passport;
* Have been checked using an automated electronic database containing information about inadmissible aliens to the United States;
* Have a return trip ticket to any foreign destination other than a territory bordering on the United States or an adjacent island unless:

1. You are a resident of an adjacent island,
2. This requirement is waived by the Attorney General under regulations, or
3. You are a visitor for business who arrives aboard a private aircraft that maintains a valid agreement guaranteeing to transport you out of the United States, if you are found to be inadmissible or deportable;

* Present to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer a completed and signed Form I-94W, Nonimmigrant Visa Waiver Arrival/Departure Form. (Please see "How Do I Get an Arrival Departure Document?" for more information about arrival/departure records.);

* Not pose a safety threat to the United States;
* Not have failed to comply with the conditions of any previous admission under the Visa Waiver Program;
* If arriving by air or sea, you must arrive aboard a carrier that signed an agreement, "signatory carrier", guaranteeing to transport you out of the United States if you are found to be inadmissible or deportable;
* Convince the examining CBP officer that you are clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted and that you are not inadmissible under section 212 of the Act. For reasons that would make you inadmissible, please see the Immigration and Nationality Act at INA 212 (a);
* Waive any right to review or appeal a CBP officer's decision as to your admissibility, other than on the basis of an application for asylum or an application for withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and
* Waive any right to challenge your removal, other than on the basis of an application for asylum or an application for withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Overview of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) [cbp.gov]

When a hacker finds some flaw and announces it with a zero-day exploit, some want us to call that "security research". So, when an immigration official finds a way to keep a hacker out of the country using existing laws (which apply equally to everyone), shouldn't that just be called "legal research"?

So, a hacker got owned; I for one think that is pretty funny. Just like a hacker might say to regular programmers, "next time he should be more careful."

It's a technicality because he wouldn't have needed a visa had the contract
been between Blackhat and his company. What determines whether he gets in is
whether he signed the contract as an individual or as the CEO of his company.

What bothers me about this is not so much that they picked up on this rather minor
technicality but that the response is extreme and inflexible. Why not let him fix the
technical flaw making the contract with his company? The reason they gave was that he couldn't do
this because he had already applied as an individual. So what? That may be immigration policy, but its a stupid, inflexible policy. Similarly, it is ridiculous to bar him forever from using the visa waiver program, though they are indeed applying their normal policy to him. The assumption is that any violation of the rules should be treated as evidence that the individual is untrustworthy and should therefore have to go through the full visa application process. That is an obviously unsound assumption - there are plenty of cases like this one in which the violation is trivial and/or unintentional. Exclusion from the visa waiver program should be restricted to serious, intentional violations.

It's a technicality because he wouldn't have needed a visa had the contract been between Blackhat and his company. What determines whether he gets in is whether he signed the contract as an individual or as the CEO of his company.

That's actually incorrect. If he is coming under those circumstances he still needs a work visa, but instead of an H1-B it may be an E-1 or similar other classification that doesn't require as stringent an application process.

Maybe so, but the INS has many resources freely available that describe what is necessary. They are pretty explicit that you cannot legally come to the US and get paid for something you do without getting an appropriate visa type. Tourist visas don't allow someone else to pay you while you are in the US.

Yeah right. Please send a custom officer to each academic conference to arrest those evil foreign professors who "illegally" delivers workshops in advance of the main conferences. As long as the conference is truly international and world class, the officer can be guaranteed to catch a few Indian, Chinese, Japanese, German or Brits "work illegally without a permit".As far as I know nearly every single one of them fills in the entry form as an individual who travels to US to attend a conference/ workshop.

I am sure that academics traveling to the US generally realize what visa they will need. For example here is a web page provided by Duke Unversity that describes what is needed for visiting professors.

Surely just about everybody knows that if you're being paid to give a workshop you are working and probably need a visa that permits you to work.
Of course, often presenters at workshops are not paid, or they are given a relatively modest "honorarium" that doesn't count as pay.

Because by the time the next conference happens, the US will have already shut its borders for anyone "suspect" of leaving the country to attend this conference, from attending.

That may not be the wisest of ideas:

"The largest part of the attendees of the trainings are US-Government related folks, mostly working on US National Security in some form. I have trained people from the DoD, DoE, DHS and most other agencies that come to mind."

Because America is seen as "safe" (How safe is a country full of firearms and short tempered people..?) where as most of the above have a slight problem with lawlessness and some murder/kidnapping history.

Actually, this incident doesn't demonstrate any kind of problem with holding conferences in the US. If he had merely planned to attend the conference, he wouldn't have been denied entry. What got him in trouble was his plan to do training for two days prior to the conference, that is, to work in the United States. Granted, he was denied entry on a technicality that he should have been allowed to fix, but what that means is that if you want to work in the US you have to be careful.

It's clear that this kind of conference is now impossible to gather in the US, so relocate it in a free country. Why not Mexico, South Am, East Asia, Russia?

What makes you think that border guards are trained - or inclined - to be less rule-bound and unsympathetic elsewhere? I'll pass on the chance to sweat out the arrival of the American consul at a Nicaraguan lock-up.

Now I have to fear that the people here did not do their work properly (i.e. gave me the wrong visa application), and that I'll be rejected at the gates after standing in a huge queue before immigration at the airport.

The other reason is that after providing the security services with boatloads of personal information, fingerprints and other biometrics, some flag will go up in some obscure system, and I'll be (hopefully) sent back straight away by unnamed guys, and if I'm unlucky, get deported to the happy camp of Guantanamo inc. to have all human rights stripped from me for reasons unknown.

They've made it quite clear that they don't like "furriners", so why are people still pressing the issue? Canada is a free and open society, and just to the north. We have lots of conference space in environments much more conducive to rational thought.

Yeah, except you can't take paid speaking engagements up here without a work visa either.He wasn't denied because the session was on security, he was denied because he's NOT ALLOWED TO WORK THERE without proper approval.

He would have been deported from Canada for the exact same reason had he told them the same story. In fact, if he wasn't a member of the EU he would have also been deported from Ireland, the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, etc, etc, etc....

Um, only if it's not for work.My stamp from the UK explicitly states "Employment and Recourse to public funds prohibited." I think that means I can't get paid to work there... fairly certain:-)

And for the record, the UK customs is just as nasty as the americans. Worse yet because usually I'm so f'ing tired I just don't want to deal with them. At least in the states I'm so close to home that I can put up with their asinine questions and all that.Though to be fair I've also had just as much trouble with C

Disclaimer: I'm an Immigration Officer with the CBSA, but this post only contains my personal opinion and I don't represent the Government of Canada.I'm not sure why you were modded information, since you're spreading false information.

Sure about that? I just looked at the documentation you linked and this seems identical to the issue in the US (From R186(j)):

Commercial speakers have a vested interest in the event at which they are speaking. Typically,
they rent commercial space in a hotel, advertise, charge admission, deliver the event and then
leave Canada. If they are doing this for no more than five days on one trip, they can enter under
R186(j). This regulation covers situations where the speaker is speaking to multiple groups, as
long as the duration of the speaking events is no more than five days, not counting travel time in
the case of multiple engagements.
Not included in R186(j) are commercial speakers who are hired by a Canadian entity to provide training
services. In these cases, other entry options must be explored including HRSDC LMOs or the NAFTA
Professional category which allows for professionals to provide training services under some
circumstances.

So if he went to Canada and said he was being paid by a Canadian company to provide training services, he would need a visa.

Yes, I realize that exception exists. However, I don't think that applies in this case.I'll give you an example of "training services": A large insurance company in Canada decides to implement service oriented architecture. They contract a consultant from the USA to come up to the company and give a few training sessions to the IT department. In this case, they would have to apply for a work permit.

I'm not really familiar with how Blackhat works, but assuming Blackhat is just a regular conference where memb

They've made it quite clear that they don't like "furriners", so why are people still pressing the issue? Canada is a free and open society, and just to the north.

Too bad we really do like "foreigners" (I guess you Canadians spell it differently) here in the USA. However, you try getting bombed a few times and then we'll see just how flexible things will be in Canada.

The reality of the situation is that once you have a serious terrorist attack or two on your soil then everything gets clamped down a bit more. No one wants to be the person who lets the next would-be terrorist into the country. This means that everyone from the top down doesn't have any desire to be

The reality of the situation is that once you have a serious terrorist attack or two on your soil then everything gets clamped down a bit more. No one wants to be the person who lets the next would-be terrorist into the country.

I don't think it has much to do with terrorism actually (except to the extent that "terrorism" is the current administration's general purpose excuse for just about everything).

It's really easy to get a U.S. tourist or student visa, and they're every bit as useful to a potential terr

It helps if you travel a lot already. Hell, when I drive to the states [for pleasure] I tell them I'm on a "skeeball run" which sadly enough is the actual truth [Watertown, NY has a mall called "Salmon Run" which has a decent arcade]. They stopped asking after the fifth or so trip. Now they just glance in the car and wave me on:-)

This is not good. It's my understanding that once you've been kicked out, it's much, much, much harder to get back in.

That leaves me rather scared. I've known Halvar for almost six years; we were in Singapore together at Black Hat Asia. He's a very intelligent engineer, doing very good research, and has done more than almost anyone to make people realize that obfuscation is not security. We, as an industry, need his voice. (A bit cynical, but seriously, we as an American industry want his talents put to work here, rather than overseas.)

Simple arguments like -- nobody could figure out how this works, they'd have to be able to read code -- have been destroyed because of Halvar's work. You may not realize it, but without concrete examples of attacks, software developers simply cannot comprehend attacks against their code that they can't do themselves. Halvar is a critical innoculation against technically inept but vaguely plausable excuses why something must be impossible.

Halvar does the impossible regularly. Seriously, he's an artist, and the American security industry is directly harmed by not being able to learn from him. What's the story going to be? That Halvar can only do training in India, and China, and in Europe? Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Everyone else's code gets more secure while ours rots on the vine.

The only thing more embarrassing than this was when Xioyun Wang, the Chinese professor who cracked MD5, was denied entry to the US. Oh well, Halvar, I guess you're in good company...

[...] What's the story going to be? That Halvar can only do training in India, and China, and in Europe? Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Everyone else's code gets more secure while ours rots on the vine.[...]

Given that all US software development will be outsourced to India and China anyways, it makes sese to give these folks an advantage in learning about software security.

Absolutely right! Halvar is extraordinarily talented and it will be a terrible shame if his class [blackhat.com] is canceled. But it starts on Monday, so unless they do it by video conference I can't see him making it. I still hope to see him when I fly to Vegas on Thursday, but the odds aren't good:(.

I'd like to know just what the immigration department expects US conferences to do when bringing in foreign speakers. Halvar says they wanted to treat him like an "employee" of BlackHat and get an H1-B visa [wikipedia.org]. But that is a ridiculous as it is a multi-year process. Halvar thinks coming as a representative of his own German company will help, but we shouldn't have to require that foreigners incorporate just to give a simple presentation or training class here.

I'm an American who has been paid to give presentations and training in many countries, including Germany. And I've never been hassled by their immigration dept. or received any special visas. So its embarrassing and harmful that the US subjects visitors to our country to all of this crap (including the fingerprinting and pushing other countries toward RFID passports). Its no wonder that many conference producers, including BlackHat, have been increasing the number of cons held offshore. The US just isn't seen as a welcoming place.

Pardon the long rant, but I hate seeing my friends put through this. And I'm sure similar things happen to thousands of people we don't know every day. Also, if those of us in the US don't fix our system, other countries might copy it and then we'll have to deal with this shit when we travel.

every country has this issue. All countries don't like foreigners taken their jobs. Look into any work visa program in any country and it is extremely difficult to gain authorization and very easy to make mistakes. When I was traveling back and forth to Canada with my company I was ALWAYS sure to brief the customs people that I was not there "for work" but rather "attending business meetings." There is a large difference.

Thank god, the US has no need of foreigners coming in and teaching. If that kind of crazy idea caught on, all hell would break loose. The population might become sufficiently educated to start to question the silly rules.

About a month ago, some of my coworkers attended a conference on molecular spectroscopy in the US. One of the scheduled talks there was canceled because the speaker was denied entry to the US. Apparently, when the border control asked him about his profession, he said that he's an "atomic physicist".

I think if this sort of thing continues, more and more conference organizers will simply opt to hold their conferences in countries that are a bit more free.

I've avoided them ever since DeCSS (I was a named defendant) and I don't plan to change that. As I see it, for a foreign national in the computer security business, pretty much anything you do while, before or potentially-might-do-after your trip can result in them locking you up indefinitely.

And the real horror is: A couple years ago, people even on/. would've labeled me paranoid and anti-american for that statement. Today, I fear, most will agree and some will post details of the relevant laws.

Well... I presume the man had a passport, so I don't think this qualifies as "random" exactly, matter of fact given their rationale for sending him packing I'd say it was pretty well targeted. The Feds seem to be sending a "we don't want your kind here" message.

A passport is required to get a TOURIST visa, which does not allow you to take up residence or work. You're right, they don't want his "kind" there. That would be the illegal alien kind.

It's one thing to argue the benefits of controlling the migration of labour, but it's not rational to assume this is because he's a "hacker" [oooh spooky!]. Most of the time when I told the US customs that I was going to give talks at Toorcon [or whatever] they didn't even know what cryptography was, let alone that it was al

Yes, but the summary does say that "... said he was blocked from entering the US on the technicality that he had (years ago) signed a contract with Black Hat as an individual, not as his company" which does indicate that the immigration folks had some specific knowledge, as opposed to his being just another illegal alien.

When you go through customs. someone usually asks you if your here on business or pleasure. You say business, They ask where and why or what. You explain. They ask if you have any documentation on this, you show them. Now the border agent can look and see you are an outside citizens who signed a contract to do work in the states and don't have a visa.In the past, they might have ignored it. Now, with the illegals and everyone wanting them out, they aren't ignoring it. I don't think it is the customs agent,

Don't shop there. Convince others to do the same. I mean by this logic, every store that opens its doors in the states must flourish and last forever. Sadly that isn't the truth. Walmart prevails because people whine and bitch and shop there anyways.

Either don't shop there, or change labour laws to include more reasonable minimum wages for adults, language requirements, etc...

The ignorance level when it comes to illegal aliens is amazing. Being upset about illegal aliens is one thing but the blatant racism is not only unnecessary but it just makes you look like a fucking retard.

Next time, drop the rhetoric that has been so popular against homosexuals and illegal aliens recently and instead talk about it in civil terms.

Maybe you missed something here? It didn't look like racist comments here. I live in Washington state. We have a lot of migrant workers. It's a fair assumption that the Mexicans that you see around where I live are illegal immigrants.

You can argue that is a sad state of affairs or any number of other things, but racist it is not.

I missed the racism. Maybe it was "each one has 4 mexican kids". Kind of stereotypical but not too far above the average.Explain it to us fucking retards, if you would.I believe he was making a point about our laws being enforced selectively on a guy who likely was not going to "take" a job from any american, as opposed to illegal mexicans; where every job they take depresses wages and puts one of us out of work. ("us" includes americans of mexican descent, blacks, whites, guest alien workers - everybody).

Being upset about illegal aliens is one thing but the blatant racism is not only unnecessary

How can we have a discussion about illegal aliens if one side is always going to cry "racism" in an appeal to emotion to try to shut the other side up? If his Walmart has illegal Mexicans in it, then they do. It's a statement of fact, not racism. Why, just last night, I saw four in my local Walmart in NY. How do I know they're illegals? I know the farmer they work for. Every spring they come up and every fall, he drives them back to Mexico. Am I suddenly being racist just because I said there were 4 illega

It is not OK if they are illegal -- and you or I have no idea whether they are illegal or not.

Even if they are illegal, they pay taxes because it is withheld from their pay checks. Illegals tend to overpay payroll taxes because although they pay withholding they don't get refunds; they also get social security and Medicare withheld from their wages.

They would be no more unlikely to pay their hospital bills than any other Wal-Mart employee.

I am sure they pay taxes, either directly or indirectly. How do you buy gas, rent an apartment, or anything else in the US without getting taxes involved? The answer is that you can't. And the sad thing is some of these taxes like SS and Medicare will be for benefits that are never be traceable back to the person who paid for them.

Apartment taxes do exist in some areas, for example the state of AZ charges a percentage on rentals, and of course by paying rent you are indirectly also paying real estate taxes which are pretty much universal. This is why people who live in apartments are entitled to send their children to schools and otherwise use services in the town where they rent.

Some states (example NJ) also give some sort of rebate to renters that is tied to property taxes.

This isn't an anti-american post, this is the point of view of someone outside America, so please think twice before downmodding. So, here we go.

so what? I mean, americans have this weird sense of what's right and what's wrong. For one, Spanish seems to be some kind of dirty language, something only ugly dark-skinned people speak. It's the language of evil. What's wrong with being bilingual? If schools start teaching spanish people complain. Why? I mean... "the more you know", right? If instead of speaking one language, you can speak 2? That's cool, opens a lot of possibilities.

Also, america is also ashamed of the south. You like white christmas and all that crap, and also, that's the way christmas is supposed to be. I wonder if christmas is white in Florida, or even in New Orleans? No, but you don't talk about that. People in those places go barefoot and drive in dirt roads, ewww. They also chase alligators and fish in the mississippi. I mean, if you're fishing it MUST be in some pretty lake or a crystaline river, surrounded by mountains and brown maple leaves in fucking vermont.

What the fuck is wrong with you people? There's a whole world of things, languages, foods, places, and you complain because ILLEGALS ARE TAKING OUR JOBS AND NOT PAYING TAXES! What good are taxes for? I mean, in my country I can at least get FREE medical attention, even AIDS drugs. Even if I don't have a job and don't pay taxes. Hell, even if I'm not a citizen, I can still get all of that. Do you pay your taxes? What do these taxes do anyway? You need to pay for health, food, college. In my country, at least I can CHOOSE. I can pay for health, or use the State health services (sometimes the latter is better). I can go to a private university, but I can also go (and I do) to a state-funded university (and my degree is just as good in any of them). And I can even get free food from the government (and not food stamps, to be treated like scum at the store).

Do you realize that you are living in a country that spends half of the WORLD'S combined budgets in defense? What good has it been? You had 9/11, but "nobody saw that coming". You had Katrina, but "nobody saw that coming". And it's your fault, because you whine about Wal-Mart, but still buy there. You whine about the illegal immigrants, but if you were a store owner, you would hire one. You whine about catastrophes (natural or terrorism), but you don't have the people you need, because they're fighting in a war far away, trying to STEAL resources from a poor country.

America has the potential to be a fucking PARADISE, if you only cut the crap, the fear of "socialism" and "communism", the "take care of yourself and fuck everyone else" attitude. America never sleeps, they're ever waiting for doomsday to happen, the day China, Korea, or even some crappy island in the pacific will try to attack you. But instead of just waiting, you go and provoke everyone, showing off your weapons and killing innocent people all over the world. Dude, NOTHING will happen to america. Just stop messing with the rest of the world. In the process you will save BILLIONS of dollars, that could be spent in education, health, etc. But no, you have been brainwashed into thinking "that's communism!".

What good is the government for? Are they only there to "govern" you? To tell you what to do? (You know, only in the world's worst dictatorships a police officer draws his gun and put it in your head, let alone "take you in custody" for no reason other than suspected terrorism. Oh yea, and in america that happens too. IF a police officer tells you to get out of the car, and you don't obey, you are likely to be put in front of a loaded gun, or maced. Even if your children are in the car.) You know what that is? That's the government AFRAID of you. How can you live in a country where the government is afraid of you? In my country 15 years ago we gave the people the option to have their retirement funds in a 401(k)-like system. Your money was invested, you get interests from it, etc. Now a

Ah, yes, but you missed my point. It's not about the government providing everything for free. It's about having options. It's about balance. Socialism and communism are extremes, but wild capitalism is also an extreme. I trust my government, I work already and my retirement fund is in the state system from the first day, because I chose so. My neighbor might have chosen a private retirement fund, good for him! I also chose private healthcare, but my mom is a retired "government employee" (a teacher, go figure), so she used a mix of both. You see?

Another example: Spain. France. Germany. I could go on, but those countries are, to a great extent, socialist. Are they worse than America? Don't they get better? (because you say that taking care of yourself, or your community, makes it better). Let me give you an example, and this is true. I have a friend who lives in spain, and he has a young daughter. He told me that the government sent him a letter, reminding him that the girl didn't go to the dentist in over a year. It reminded him that it was free, any dentist he wanted. Scary? I don't think so. That's what I mean by "the government taking care of you". Sure, they don't do it because it's nice, they do it because detecting a cavity early is cheaper than paying for tooth extraction or whatever. But, when was the last time your HMO sent you a letter, reminding you that you should get a check-up?

It's more of a thing of altruism I think. You may never understand me, because we see different things. Let me see if I can explain what I think: you are afraid of giving power to the government, because they will come back later to expect something from you. I see it more, you may say idealistically, but well, I think the government is the PEOPLE. The government gives me things (health, whatever), and it expects me to pay taxes, and nothing else. You too are afraid of your government, because of the way you think (warning: I'm not saying it's wrong, I just say I think different): you always expect something in return, and you think everyone else also expects something in return. Well, I think the government is more harmless than a big corporation. Sure, a huge government monopolizing everything is not healthier either.

Do I hate big corporations? Certainly not, I try to avoid them whenever I can, because you give them more power if you buy things from them. But obviously there are certain things, huge things, that can't be paid by small companies: A large scale network, like the phone, cable, well those are examples of things that can't be done by small companies.

But then you have the big corporation scandals, all over the place. Enron, Worldcom... A tiny government that allows itself to be lobbied, and that's what happens. Big corporations care only about the numbers, and WILL fuck anything they need in order to keep their numbers high enough (the premise is "it's never enough").

You also say that "Spending that money brought down the Iron Curtain and freed western Europe." What? Are you on crack or what? That money actually help build the iron curtain. The USSR wasn't as bad as you and I were told it was. If they were poor it was only because you provoked them, you made them spend more and more in weapons and military. If you weren't there to bother them, they MIGHT have been a happy communist country, and nothing else. But no, america can't stand the idea of communism, not even socialism, so we have to destroy it. You didn't free western europe either. You only went there because the japs touched your ass. It wasn't your war. Vietnam wasn't either, and you were there to "free" them.

See it this way: If you didn't shake the USSR, maybe they wouldn't have needed so many AK-47s. Those AK's wouldn't be in the hand of muslim extremists now. They wouldn't be so powerful, maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened if you didn't bring down the iron courtain. That's how I see it.

Dude, wake up. War is business. Billions of dollars in the hands of the corporations who make the weapons, and that's

What about the people that informed him which application to fill out? I mean, it's not common knowledge that for presenting a workshop at a conference you have to fill in visa application 157-12399-b. Oh, he's from Germany and earns more than 25k per year? then it's 157-12399-b'

I've known artists going to conventions in the US, from Canada, who didn't fill out the proper paperwork, and were turned away at the border by US Customs. They had their artwork with them, and since they were going to sell it in the US, needed a different visa.

And no, not just because ppl should RTFA before engaging in ludicrous parochialisms.

Consider: The Copernican revolution in how the US (unlike any other Western country) deals with travellers like Halvar coming to its borders from a legal, cultural, historical perspective is in the context of a wholesale erosion of human and civil rights -- of American citizens (not the hapless foreigner popping in to educate you). Realise how these incidents do sustained damage to the US reputation, its economy and its already shockingly insular society, and you will also catch a glimpse of the loss of rights and freedoms for Americans themselves.